Happy anniversary, Mr. President

Happy anniversary, Mr. President

By Donna K Woodward

MEDAN (JP): Is Indonesia better off with President Abdurrahman
Wahid than it would be without him? In October 1999 this question
would have been unthinkable; Abdurrahman seemed the only viable
hope for national unity.

By August 2000 the unthinkable question was being asked. The
People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) answered affirmatively,
though barely so, when it decided against calling for
impeachment.

But the question has not gone away. The President has failed
to achieve the reforms that people wanted when they toppled
Soeharto and rejected B.J. Habibie. Abdurrahman disregards the
checks-and-balances role of the legislature and the MPR.

Democracies need presidencies that are strong but also subject
to control; strength with control brings stability. Strength
comes from popular support; control, from a checks-and-balances
system.

President Abdurrahman's failures have cost him support on both
the public and the legislature fronts. This loss of support,
coupled with the chronic opportunism of some politicians,
suggests that for the foreseeable future Indonesia will remain
unstable, politically and economically.

Prolonged instability could degenerate into anarchy. Economic
regression most certainly will leave the country more beholden
than ever to foreign creditors and investors, leading to a loss
of sovereignty much greater than what today's opportunistic
pseudonationalists can imagine.

An amateurish guerrilla war of independence or secession is
all but declared in Aceh and threatens to be copycatted in Irian
Jaya. Rumors of coups shadow the government. Physically blind,
the President is now on the brink of becoming permanently
paralyzed as a leader. He looks more and more like an ordinary
bureaucratic in-fighter, instead of the reformer he might have
become.

This is what the President and Indonesians face when
contemplating the future. The President still has time -- perhaps
not much -- to shape the answer to the question that opened this
essay. If he does not, the answer might be shaped for him by the
MPR -- or by some ambitious well-funded general in collusion with
an even more ambitious politician.

What would Indonesia look like without Abdurrahman Wahid as
President? First, the question should not offend; it is just
below the surface of many discussions.

An exercise in imagining alternate futures is a management
tool, not an invitation to change. A premature change of
government would cause disruptions that Indonesia can ill afford.

But if economic instability, social unrest and rogue military
violence continue, there may be little choice left but to
consider a constitutionally legitimate change of leadership. It
behooves the country's caretakers to imagine possible futures.
It behooves the President to do the same, and not be lulled any
longer into avoiding reform by a false sense of indispensability.

What would Indonesia look like without Abdurrahman as
President? In the first instance it would mean a Megawati
Soekarnoputri presidency.

While this writer once considered that a disastrous prospect
because of Megawati's weakness as a reformer and lack of
management skills, against the current benchmark, a Megawati
presidency now seems less risky.

Vice President Megawati may not be yet a committed reformer;
but neither is President Abdurrahman, or Gus Dur. She may not be
a dynamic manager, but neither has the President become this.

While Megawati's pliability seemed a handicap when she
surrounded herself with an entourage that seemed heavily weighted
with thugs, since the election, persons of exceptional integrity
and competence from both within and outside the Indonesian
Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) seem to have more
of her attention.

No cronyism is ideal, but if Megawati's cronies are a higher
caliber of professionals than those of the President, then "point
to Megawati". One of President Gus Dur's strong points, or so it
was thought, were to be his relations with the military and will
to subordinate the generals.

It has become clear that the President's political will in
this regard has proven weaker than expected. International donors
do not like too much change but they would prefer rational change
to anarchy.

Affirmatively, a Megawati presidency could bring some
advantages. A president who travels through the archipelago
instead of overseas could provide a badly needed boost to
national morale.

Megawati might have learned something about presidential
leadership in her months in the wings; we cannot be sure. What
observers do see is the President's stubborn resistance to
learning from his mistakes, even after his near-fatal collision
with the MPR in August.

A longer litany of comparisons between a Gus Dur presidency
and a Megawati presidency is unnecessary; the point is obvious.
Many of last year's reasons for preferring President Abdurrahman
to candidate Megawati have receded, in view of the President's
performance.

In view of the President's continuing failure to learn from
his mistakes, his recent statements that the country had no
alternative to his presidency, may have less validity than was
believed just two months ago.

A personnel change in the presidency looks more possible with
each retraction, unwarranted accusation or impetuous claim that
escapes the President's lips.

Questioning Gus Dur's presidency is not meant to undermine it.
The President still has enough support to shape a better future
for Indonesia.

He still has the power to ensure that Indonesia would be
better off under his presidency than with a change. His survival
is still the preferred outcome.

But the President can no longer rely on the avuncular style of
governing that worked for him in previous organizations. He
cannot avoid difficult reforms by joking his way around them.
Anniversaries are times of remembrance, reflection and promises
for the future.

On his presidential anniversary, President Abdurrahman might
want to spend some time considering how his compatriots are
answering the question asked here.

The writer, an attorney and former American diplomat at the
U.S. Consulate General in Medan, is president director of PT Far
Horizons management consultancy.